“Asaph,” said Mrs. Himes, “if I were to give you a good suit of clothes, would you promise me that you would never smoke when wearing them?”
Her brother looked at her in amazement. “Clothes!” he repeated.
“Mr. Himes was about your size,” said his sister, “and he left a good many clothes, which are most of them very good and carefully packed away, so that I am sure there is not a moth-hole in any one of them. I have several times thought, Asaph, that I might give you some of his clothes; but it did seem to me a desecration to have the clothes of such a man, who was so particular and nice, filled and saturated with horrible tobacco-smoke, which he detested. But now you are getting to be so awful shabby, I do not see how I can stand it any longer. But one thing I will not do—I will not have Mr. Himes’s clothes smelling of tobacco as yours do; and not only your own tobacco, but Mr. Rooper’s.”
“I think,” said Asaph, “that you are not exactly right just there. What you smell about me is my smoke. Thomas Rooper never uses anything but the finest-scented and delicatest brands. I think that if you come to get used to his tobacco-smoke you would like it. But as to my takin’ off my clothes and puttin’ on a different suit every time I want to light my pipe, that’s pretty hard lines, it seems to me.”
“It would be a good deal easier to give up the pipe,” said his sister.
“I will do that,” said Asaph, “when you give up tea. But you know as well as I do that there’s no use of either of us a-tryin’ to change our comfortable habits at our time of life.”
“I kept on hoping,” said Mrs. Himes, “that you would feel yourself that you were not fit to be seen by decent people, and that you would go to work and earn at least enough money to buy yourself some clothes. But as you don’t seem inclined to do that, I thought I would make you this offer. But you must understand that I will not have you smoke in Mr. Himes’s clothes.”
Asaph stood thinking, the head of his axe resting upon the ground, a position which suited him. He was in a little perplexity. Marietta’s proposition seemed to interfere somewhat with the one he had made to Thomas Rooper. Here was a state of affairs which required most careful consideration. “I’ve been arrangin’ about some clothes,” he said, presently; “for I know very well I need ’em; but I don’t know just yet how it will turn out.”
“I hope, Asaph,” said Marietta, quickly, “that you are not thinking of going into debt for clothing, and I know that you haven’t been working to earn money. What arrangements have you been making?”
“That’s my private affair,” said Asaph, “but there’s no debt in it. It is all fair and square—cash down, so to speak; though, of course, it’s not cash, but work. But, as I said before, that isn’t settled.”